Song of the Sword

by Edward Willett

  “She’s heading for the centre of the pit,” said the radio. Then, “She’s going to get herself killed if she doesn’t watch out!”

  ~ • ~

  Ariane wasn’t unaware of the gigantic digging machine looming over her, but it seemed unreal, unimportant. What was real, what mattered, was the shard singing in her head, calling to her, calling to the blood and the power of the Lady of the Lake, its creator and guardian. And then that song became an overwhelming shout that flooded her senses so thoroughly it almost blotted out the world around her. She slammed on the brakes as the inside of the truck faded from her vision and the roaring of the giant shovel subsided to a faint growl.

  The only thing that remained clear and sharp in her vision was the last great gash in the gravel made by the shovel. The giant bucket’s edge had caught and lifted the end of an enormous slab of rock within that gash, and water glittered in the dark space underneath.

  And in that water...

  She threw open the door of the pickup and stepped inside a deepening shadow that suddenly made it hard to see beneath the slab. Annoyed, she looked up to see what was blocking the light – and fear burst through the song of the sword, trapping her breath inside her chest.

  The huge steel bucket was dropping toward her for another bite of gravel, far too fast for her to leap out of the way.

  What happened next was out of her conscious control, pure survival instinct, the ancient imperative to draw on every resource the body could command when death threatened. Driven by adrenaline and terror, the power of the Lady reached out for the nearest water – and found the pool beneath the huge rock slab that sheltered the first shard of Excalibur.

  The water exploded out of its hiding place, lifting the slab as easily as a gust of wind would lift a leaf. Thick mud splattered the ground around Ariane, but not a drop touched her. The slab smashed into the descending bucket with an earsplitting crash, driving it up and backward, shifting the whole massive shovel over the lip of the shallow slope to its right. Cables snapped, whining like angry bees as they wrapped themselves around the shovel’s structure. The rock slab crashed to the ground just metres from Ariane, shaking the earth. The shovel, unbalanced, began to tip. The operator scrambled out and jumped clear just as it fell ponderously onto its side down the slope, where it lay, twisted and useless.

  Ariane had already forgotten about it. Now that she had removed the slab, Excalibur’s song slammed into her mind with as much force as the slab had slammed into the shovel. Her knees buckled. She dropped to all fours, then scrambled to the edge of the gaping hole the shovel had just opened, drawn like a moth to a candle flame.

  Every drop of water had exploded out of the hole and left it bone-dry. She slid down the slope on her rear, landing on her feet in a cloud of dust.

  In the middle of the hole, sunlight gleamed off the black, glassy surface of an obsidian box the size of a jewelry case. Ariane knelt beside it, wondering how to open it – but the moment she touched it, it clicked and the lid lifted.

  Nestled inside a bed of fibrous dust that might once have been cloth was a sharply pointed piece of age-pitted and darkened steel, about twenty centimetres long and a bit under four centimetres wide, honed on two sides, and broken off at the top.

  Ariane reached for it. The instant she touched the shard, its already nearly overwhelming song crescendoed to such a fortissimo of joy and delight that, dazed, she fell ungracefully – and painfully – onto her bottom.

  But as quickly as the song had climaxed, it quieted, as if the shard were relieved to have returned to the hands of the Lady of the Lake.

  Or, at least, a reasonable facsimile thereof.

  The cessation of the shard’s song brought the reality of her situation crashing down on Ariane. She had the shard, but Security had Wally, Rex Major had probably realized by now what she was up to, and she had just destroyed a very large and very valuable piece of equipment.

  Just how much do giant mining shovels cost, anyway?

  She had to somehow elude Major, find Wally, and get both of them back to Regina. After that...

  After that, she didn’t have a clue.

  But first things first.

  She clambered up the hole’s dusty slope to the floor of the pit. There she pulled herself to her feet, brushed herself off, and finally looked up, intending to get back into her pickup –

  – only to see three pickups blocking her way, and, standing between her and all of them, Rex Major, his left arm wrapped around Wally’s chest, his right hand pressing a pistol to Wally’s head.

  ~ • ~

  Rex Major had seen the extraordinary eruption of water, mud and rock smash into the giant shovel, and despite himself, had been impressed. At the peak of his powers, he might have been able to manage such a feat, but not anymore.

  Once he had Excalibur whole and in his possession, of course, all that would change – and the first shard of Excalibur had to be right at the girl’s feet. Why else would she have stopped where she had, beneath the giant shovel’s bucket?

  He roared along one of the winding roads leading to the pit’s centre. A glance at the rearview mirror showed him the other pickup; it was close enough that he could tell who was in it – the massive security guard, Drezner, and the girl’s young companion, the boy who was so resistant to his Voice of Command.

  When he looked ahead, he saw the girl had moved into the pit dug by the shovel. She might be putting her hands on the shard at that very moment.

  He glanced at the rearview mirror again, and bared his teeth in a feral smile.

  She won’t have it for long!

  ~ • ~

  The destruction of the shovel made Drezner swear and Wally’s jaw drop. Even after everything he had seen Ariane do, he had never imagined she had that kind of power. It frightened him a little – heck, more than a little. I’ve gotta warn Flish to lay off her, or I may just find myself short a sister!

  “Damn thing must have hit an Artesian well or something,” Drezner muttered. “I hope your sister is still alive.”

  “She’s alive.” Wally had glimpsed her momentarily, before she dropped out of sight into the hole dug by the shovel. But she may not stay that way for much longer, he thought, his eyes shifting to Major’s pickup ahead of them.

  The two trucks raced across the bottom of the mine pit and braked to a halt within a few metres of each other, next to the mud-covered pickup Ariane had been driving.

  As Drezner leaned forward to lift the microphone from the truck’s two-way radio, Major burst out of his vehicle and ran toward them. “Drez!” Wally warned.

  Drezner, his back to Major, hushed Wally with an impatient chop of his hand and spoke into the mike. “Security Five here. She’s in the pit, down in the hole the shovel just dug. Looks like the shovel is a complete write-off. I’ll go down there and –”

  But just what he’d go down there and do, Wally never heard, for at that moment Major reached the pickup, jerked open the driver’s-side door, and snapped one word at Drezner: “Sleep.”

  Drezner closed his eyes mid-word and slumped in his seat.

  “Security Five?” the radio squawked. “Security Five, come in! Drez, what’s going on? All our cameras in the pit just went out!”

  Major reached inside the cab and pulled Drezner’s pistol from its holster, then looked at Wally. His gaze, as blue and cold as a January sky, chilled Wally, who turned and tried to grab the door handle. But Major dashed around the front of the truck and, just as Wally started to push the door, the sorcerer grabbed it and jerked it wide open. Wally tumbled out onto the gravelly ground in a bruised and undignified heap.

  Major hauled him to his feet – Shouldn’t a centuries-old man be at least a little bit frail? Wally thought resentfully – as the wizard twisted his arm behind his back. “You’re too late,” Wally gasped. “She already has the shard by now.”

  “She may have it, but she won’t keep it.” Major began frog-marching him toward the edge of the hole into wh
ich Ariane had disappeared. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for fifteen hundred years. With Excalibur, I can return to my own world and free it from millennia of tyranny. I’m not going to let you, her, or anyone else on Earth stand in my way.”

  As if on cue, Ariane’s head reappeared above the lip of the hole. Merlin pulled Wally into a bear hug with his left arm while his right hand pressed the muzzle of the pistol against the boy’s cheek. The cold, hard metal dug into the skin, the pressure so hard it made the bone beneath ache.

  Ariane climbed out of the hole, dusted herself off, straightened, saw them – and froze.

  ~ • ~

  Rex Major’s face had taken on a harsh, angular appearance, as though the ancient skull beneath his skin had somehow come to the fore. The ruby stud in his right earlobe looked less like the affectation of a modern businessman and more like the barbarous display of an ancient warrior. No one who knew him from his corporate publicity photos would have recognized him. His colleagues and employees would have crossed the street to avoid him.

  Unfortunately, Ariane didn’t have that option.

  “Give the shard to me,” Major said in a voice like broken glass. “Or the boy dies.”

  The Lady’s power registered the Voice of Command – and casually parried its feeble thrust. But the power could not protect Wally. Ariane could see how the gun’s pressure against Wally’s cheek had driven the blood from his skin so that, once again, his freckles stood out like a leopard’s spots. She knew that Major would not hesitate to pull the trigger to get what he wanted.

  “This whole pit must be on camera,” she said. “And there are workers down here. They’ll see you threatening Wally. You can’t –”

  “I have more power than you think,” Major said. “The cameras are not working. The witnesses can see nothing but haze and dust. No one will rescue you.”

  Ariane reached inside herself for her own power, the power that moments ago had been able to hurl tonnes of rock into the air...and found nothing.

  She didn’t have enough energy left to move a raindrop.

  If the Lady were to be believed, it would be a disaster for the world if Rex Major were to re-forge Excalibur. She’d told Wally herself in the Human Bean that Merlin would be the worst tyrant in all of history.

  But he was holding a gun to her best friend’s – her only friend’s – head.

  It’s only one shard.

  There were other shards. There would be other opportunities to stop Merlin.

  But the shard is mine. The part of her that was the Lady made her fingers tighten around it. I will not give it up. I will not. I will not –

  Major shoved the pistol harder against Wally’s cheek, so hard the boy cried out in pain.

  The part of Ariane that was not the Lady made the only possible choice.

  There were other shards. But she had no other friends.

  “Take it,” she said, and held out the shard.

  “Ariane –” Wally started, then winced and subsided as Major jabbed him again with the barrel of the pistol.

  “Drop it,” Major said, no longer trying to Command her.

  “Let him go first,” Ariane said.

  Major smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “I can still kill him,” he said. “And then take the shard. Drop it.”

  Ariane held out the shard. She willed her fingers to unclench, to let if fall. For a moment they refused to obey her. Then, convulsively, they snapped open. The shard fell to the ground. She gasped as its song turned discordant, filled with anger that she had let it go.

  “Step away from it,” Major said.

  Ariane backed away toward the pit.

  Still holding Wally, Major shuffled forward. When he stood over the shard, he pulled the pistol away from Wally’s face and shoved the boy so hard he fell and rolled twice. Ariane hurried to him. By the time she had helped him to his feet, Major was holding the shard in his left hand. He barely glanced at it before he shoved it into his pocket. His right hand still held the pistol, now pointed at both of them. Wally stood panting beside her, one hand rubbing his bruised cheek.

  Ariane reached desperately for the Lady’s power. All she could call from the mud and snow around her was a fine mist that rose no more than an inch, then subsided.

  Major laughed. “Out of steam, are you? Magic takes its toll, girl. Well, save your strength. Your magic can’t harm me anyway: that much of my old power remains. Go home and forget you ever saw the Lady, and I promise, I will leave you alone. But get in my way again – well, I have many servants, both human and...not. You can’t escape them all.”

  “You can’t hurt me, or you already would have!” Ariane flung at him, hoping it was the truth.

  “It’s true I can’t kill you – not yet,” Major said. “Now that you have the Lady’s power, to kill you would be to destroy that power, and the power of Excalibur with it. But I can hurt you. Or lock you away where no one will ever find you. Or both.” Major showed his teeth in a savage grin. “And even the dubious protection from death you enjoy doesn’t extend to those around you – as your boyfriend just discovered. As your aunt can be taught.”

  Ariane felt the blood drain from her face.

  “If you are fortunate – and smart – we will not meet again.” Without turning his back on Ariane, Major edged toward to the pickup in which Wally had arrived. At the open door, he spun around and replaced the pistol in the security chief’s holster, then Commanded Drezner: “Wake!”

  The big guard suddenly sat upright, and Major shouted, “There she is!”

  As though he had never been asleep, Drezner leaped out of the truck and drew his gun. “All right, you,” he growled. “You’re coming with me.” He reached into the pickup again and picked up the microphone. “Security Five here,” he said without taking his eyes off Ariane. “I’ve got her.” He frowned, glanced at the pickup’s passenger seat, then looked over at Wally, still sitting on the ground where Rex had thrown him. The frown gave way to a confused look. “Uh, both of them, I mean.”

  Behind Drezner, Rex Major bowed once to Ariane, then got into his own pickup and drove away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sinks, Pools, and Toilets

  The sorely puzzled Drezner cuffed Ariane and Wally. He saw the spreading bruise on the boy’s cheek and pointed. “How’d that happen?” But neither Wally nor Ariane answered him.

  What’s the point? Ariane thought. No one but them had seen what Major had done, and Drezner apparently had no idea he’d even been asleep. He’d never believe a wild story of a successful businessman like Rex Major threatening a teenage boy with a stolen gun. Ariane could already see him brushing away his curiosity like an annoying insect.

  The radio crackled, and Ariane heard Major’s voice over the open radio channel. “Security? Rex Major here.”

  “Mr. Major!” Ursu’s voice crackled back at once. “Where are you?”

  “Just driving out of the pit. It looks like your people have your little problem under control.” A little problem, Ariane thought bitterly. That’s all I was.

  “This is highly unusual, Mr. Major. I assure you, we rarely have –”

  “No need to apologize, Mr. Ursu. I was very impressed by the professionalism of your security staff. Very impressed. And, I might add, impressed by everything else I’ve seen today.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it, Mr. Major.” Ursu sounded relieved. “I’d still like to show you the crushing facility, if you’ve –”

  “That won’t be necessary – or possible. I’m afraid I must ask to be flown back to Yellowknife immediately.”

  “So soon? But there’s so much –”

  “I’ve seen enough, Mr. Ursu. I’ll be directing my financial people to make a sizeable investment in your company. Once I’m back in Yellowknife, we can finalize matters.”

  A pause. “Really? I mean, that’s wonderful but –”

  “Have the pilot meet me at the airfield immediately. I trust that won’t be a problem.�
�

  “No, sir.” Another pause, filled with the indistinct murmur of voices in the background, then Ursu said, “He’s on his way.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ursu. You’ve been most helpful.”

  The radio crackled and went silent.

  That’s it, then, Ariane thought. He’ll be gone before we’re even out of the pit. She leaned her head back against the tire and closed her eyes, letting her exhaustion take her.

  “Taking a nap?” Drezner’s voice snapped her back to wakefulness. “Get up.” He pushed her and Wally through the pickup’s open passenger door and rounded the front of the truck to climb into the driver’s seat. As he started the engine, he glanced at Ariane. “I don’t know how you got away last time, young lady, but don’t think you can manage it again. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  Ariane said nothing. She could feel her power seeping back...but slowly, so slowly. Food or sleep might bring it back faster, but there seemed little chance of either.

  She’d just have to wait.

  They drove out of the pit, passing half a dozen trucks headed the other way, probably full of maintenance workers and mine officials going to have a look at the crippled shovel. Ariane had no doubt she’d cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I didn’t even manage to hang on to the shard. I actually made it easier for Merlin to get it! Lady of the Lake? What a joke!

  She leaned her head against the cool glass of the window and stared at the ground rolling past, wishing she had never heard the singing of the water in Wascana Lake.

  ~ • ~

  Wally glanced at Ariane. It didn’t take a mind reader to see she was upset. He couldn’t blame her. He felt more than a little low himself. Some Companion of the Order of the Lady. Kidnapped by the villain. Used to blackmail the heroine. I should have stayed home.

  He touched his bruised cheek and winced. He’d been bullied his entire life, thanks to being both small and smart, but no one had ever threatened to kill him before – not someone who really meant it anyway (Flish didn’t count). It proved Major’s – Merlin’s – ruthlessness, of course, proved he couldn’t be allowed to get Excalibur...but there was something Major had said, about needing the sword to free his own world from tyranny, and waiting fifteen centuries for this moment, that had struck a chord in Wally. He could almost sympathize with him...probably would have sympathized with him, if he had been a character in a book. Locked away without magic for centuries, freed at last but almost powerless, fighting to free his world? When you thought about it that way, Rex Major was a character straight out of a fantasy epic.